Happy Valley gardens featured on Garden and Art Tour

Two Happy Valley gardens in Rossland were featured on this year’s Hills to Valley Garden & Art Tour on Saturday.

Dr. Ralph Behrens’ garden features romantic masonry used to create a number of terraces as the terrain slopes down toward a willow-shaded pond. Behrens has lived on the property since 1992 and started landscaping in ′93.

“There was nothing here,” he says.

Behrens did the landscaping in stages, but he says if the time it took to do all the work were condensed, it would probably amount to 12 years.

The former general practitioner built his greenhouse himself, and he primarily grows vegetables, but also a number of perennials, heathers, peonies, irises, poppies and “a few petunias here and there.”

“It’s a source of endless, pleasant work,” he says of his garden.

Elizabeth Fowler also has a large selection of vegetables in her garden, including quinoa. She and her partner started growing quinoa three years ago and can grow enough to last both of them for a year.

They’ve been in Happy Valley since 1991.

“The whole place was pretty much just grass and weeds,” she says. “I love to garden and I love flowers, so I just slowly build up so it’s up to how we have now.”

They dug out ponds using shovels and also built a barn on the property a few years ago.

Fowler encourages everyone to try growing their own vegetables at home, even if you just start with something small.

This was the second annual Hills to Valley Garden & Art Tour, and each of the nine gardens also featured musicians and artwork.

Sandra Donohue was working in Dr. Ralph Behrens’ garden on Saturday during the Hills to Valley Garden & Art Tour. (Chelsea Novak/Rossland News)